


Perpetua

by owlady



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: AU, Gen, aka 'megatron wants to have his cake and rub it in op's face at the same time', and minimum wage archivists suffer for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25665139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlady/pseuds/owlady
Summary: His mother asks why he’s so scared of the leader of the planet. Why he is so apprehensive to bridge to their Father Planet, why he wakes up, crying out and breathing storms of upset.And Pax doesn’t remember exactly why he’s afraid. Before the False Prime, he never had any reason to be, and yet he was. But now, he knows why Megatron is terrifying.And it’s because Megatron never forgets.
Relationships: Megatron & Optimus Prime
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Perpetua

It’s a slow day in the data archives. Actually, it’s always slow- information is valuable, and not a lot of mecha have the cash to spare when they’re working just to make rent. But still, a job’s a job- and this job is a good one. So if he has to read titles and run datapads and work shifts and shifts of overtime, he will.

“Pax!”

He almost jumps, hearing his name.

Pax doesn’t remember how he got this job.

“Sir?” Pax straightens only fractionally- his usual way of slumping, shoulders around his ears and datapads stacked up to his eyes. He wants to know why he’s being stopped, and then get going as soon as possible.

Never-ending work was easier than having to look someone in the eye when you didn’t know who they were. When they knew who you were, despite that. It’s a feeling that grips at him, physically.

When Megatronus demands data, he comes to the Archives and asks for Pax, just to see him cower.

“Lord Megatron,” Pax stutters, correcting himself. He stares at the floor, racking his brain.

There wasn’t any data request today.

The Archives are closed to the public today.

Megatron isn’t the public. Megatron is the absolute ruler of Cybertron and Destron, and he has shot other bots for daring to speak his name improperly, let alone ask him any sort of question. Pax has to figure this out on his own- But of course, Pax thinks, trying to keep his breathing even, there might not be an apparent reason.

This is Lord Megatron.

“How can I serve you today?” Customer service voice. Customer service eyes.

The mask just over his nose keeps him from having to smile.

“Send the extensive records of the settling of Destron directly to my personal terminal.”

Pax knows better than to argue. The last data clerk didn’t, and there were still pieces of him embedded in the ceiling.

“Of course,” Pax takes a step back. “Uh, do you- Should it be the public record, or the-”

Megatron barely makes a sound when he closes the gap between himself and Pax. And Pax, despite being taller than most ‘bots his age from Destron, barely reaches the Lord of Cybertron’s proudly displayed decepticon insignia. The one that everyone wears, now.

His eyes bore holes into Pax’s forehead, like he’s looking for something- but instead of dismissing him or even adding him to the collection of dead clerks stuck in the Archive’s walls, he chuckles. Megatron is gunmetal grey and shined to a gleam. He physically towers, and Pax knows his hands have personally put out the lights in more than one person’s eyes.

And then he inclines his head and nods.

“The public record,” the Master of Kaon’s Pits declares. “The one that we use to educate sparklings during their first years of Academy placing.”

Pax doesn’t remember how he got this job, but he remembers this.

He remembers the date.

The anniversary of the arrest and imprisonment of the False Prime.

Every year, Megatron asks for data. Just to prove the False Prime wrong in what he fought for. To show the peace that had been brought by Megatron’s leadership. And every year, Pax has to watch.

His mother asks why he’s so scared of the leader of the planet. Why he is so apprehensive to bridge to their Father Planet, why he wakes up, crying out and breathing storms of upset.

And Pax doesn’t remember exactly why he’s afraid. Before the False Prime, he never had any reason to be, and yet he was. But now, he knows why Megatron is terrifying.

And it’s because he never forgets.

* * *

Megatron has his entourage- His personal medic, first and second Secretaries of State and Military Defense, and his Head of Security- bridged to the prison at the center of Cybertron. He follows after, with Pax in tow- hiding in his shadow.

Pax hates coming to this place.

He hates when Megatron gestures, and he slots a data disk into his chest and projects vids of happy, smiling Destronians onto the prison’s grey, grey wall. He hates how the False Prime’s head is bolted into place, his eyelids removed, his arms and legs chained.

People say the Prime deserves this. But they don’t see what Pax sees. They don’t know what he has to carry, time after time again to the core of the planet to destroy just one mech.

Pax doesn’t remember why he was so terrified of Megatron, before he even knew him.

But it isn’t for a lack of trying on his part.

“This,” Megatron hisses into the Prime’s ear, battle mask so like Pax’s own faceplate, “Is what you attempted to kill. This is what survived.”

The next vid plays, and Pax has to bite his tongue.

“This, Optimus Prime, is your legacy.”

He sees himself, projected on the wall. Struggling to stand as Optimus Prime, a larger, more heroic version of himself, supports him with one arm. He is carrying a blue femme that Pax doesn’t know. Pax is holding two sparklings, terror in his eyes.

“No,” Pax on the vid says, voice desperate. “Optimus, no. It’s a trap! It’s a trap-”

“Jack-” The Prime’s voice is kind, but stern and so worried.

“He’s going to erase everything.”

And images flash before Pax’s eyes, one after another, a blur so fast that he can barely even process what he’s remembering-

Oh, god. Jack is remembering-

And Pax- Jack- whoever, whatever he is now, too big, too metal, too scared- he stalls out. The projector stops reading data as cascading failures trip over his train of thought, and he makes a strangled noise-

Because once again, Jack has lived through the destruction of his planet in the space of a few seconds. He knows exactly why the Prime’s torture breaks him, too.

“It’s all gone,” Pax barely makes a sound. But he hears the scrape of metal against metal, and remembers again-

Optimus is pulling at his restraints. Optimus has not given up. Optimus looks at Pax- Jack- and he says three words:

“I am sorry.”

And Megatron snarls with his vengeance and slams Optimus’s helmet into the back of his restraints. He has enough strength to crush his head in-

But he doesn’t.

Because it isn’t Jack that Megatron wants Optimus’s last words to go to. It isn’t the human race. It isn’t Raf, or Miko, because Jack knows Megatron has brought them here before, too-

Megatron wants Optimus’ last words to be regret. He wants Optimus to admit he was right-

And then he wants to crush the bot’s spark and melt the slag into the ground, never to see daylight again.

“It’s okay.”

It isn’t. The Autobots lost. This is the 50th time this has happened, this punishment and this defiance.

“I forgi-”

Soundwave- the Security head, tentacle bot, terror in his own right- slams a tentacle into the back of his neck, where the spine meets the skull. Pain dissolves the world, but still, Jack screams-

“I FORGIVE YO-”

* * *

And Pax wakes, back at home on destron, his mother messaging him to come and eat. He has a day off, after working three shifts in a row.

Maybe, his mom allows, gently rubbing a dent with her thumb and some nanite solution, they overwork him at the archives. If he got more sleep, she reasons, he wouldn’t keep running into the shelves when he wasn’t looking where he was going.

And Pax just nods, yawning, staring at his ID Badge in the reflection of his morning cube of energon. His mother, Solus, slips away the nanite plaster and then kisses his forehead, but Pax barely blinks.

Pax Memoriam, Data Clerk, First Class.

He doesn’t remember how he got this job.

And he doesn’t remember why he’s so terrified to go back on Monday morning.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea why this plot bit me but have another piece of existential 'megatron wins' fanfiction for the transformers prime category


End file.
